Comparative Analysis of Women's Military Participation in East Asia
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Comparative Analysis of Women’s Military Participation in East Asia By Lana Obradovic Within political science where East Asia seems to be the scholarly flavour of the day, Western military analysts continue to focus their research on traditional, realist concerns such as military spending, technological advancement, and the North Korean threat, with little or no mention of the recent gender integration policies of the military services in the region. When the world’s largest all-female formation in military parade history – 378 Chinese women soldiers of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) – made its debut by goose-stepping past the Tian’anmen Rostrum during the 60th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on October 1st, 2009, most observers noted their presence by describing the female soldiers’ short hot pink skirts and knee-high leather boots : communist-realist kitsch reigned supreme. None thought of mentioning that the Chinese military has the same number of women as the US. Similarly, colourful images of dancing and sword-yielding servicewomen’s performances in North Korea overshadow the reports that females comprise up to 22 percent of the country’s total military force levels, that they guard every tunnel and bridge, or that most of the artillery units along the North Korean coast are made up of women.1 Nor does the reverse situation in neighbouring democracies raise any eyebrows. Despite extensive reforms and almost full integration, surprisingly low percentages of women in the Self-Defence Forces (SDF) of Japan (5.4%) and South Korea’s armed forces (4%) hardly even earn a footnote in most Western scholarly works. While in the past two decades scholars have sought to hypothesize the relationship between various structural, institutional, cultural and international factors and degrees of women’s military participation, particularly in North American and West European States that have experienced the most dramatic changes, precious little analysis has been devoted to East Asia, the only region where the Cold War is still raging and where citizenship in both democratic and non-democratic regimes is often defined in militarized and gendered terms. Yet, important questions need to be addressed : what is the current status of women in the military services of China, Japan, North and South Korea, and how useful are our Western theoretical models in explaining it ? This article does not purport to be an exhaustive study that can fully capture the dynamics of women’s military participation in the region. Rather, it is an attempt to conduct 1 See “North Korean Forces Increasingly Manned by Women Soldiers”, World Tribune, January 24, 2007 : http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/WTARC/2007/ea_nkorea_01_25.html, accessed July 10, 2015. Published in Res Militaris (http://resmilitaris.net ), ERGOMAS issue n°1, Women in the Military, Part One, September 2015 Res Militaris, ERGOMAS issue n°1, Women in the Military, Part One, September 2015 2 exploratory research on this understudied subject in East Asia and perhaps offer some answers about the way democratic and non-democratic regimes approach it. First, it will present the Western theoretical explanations of women’s military participation. Second, it will review the literature on the impact of Confucian culture, ideology and history of militarism on gender relations as it might help us understand the context within which women are integrated into militaries in East Asia. Next, by providing empirical evidence, it will show that although Western theories are unable to fully explain women’s military participation in East Asia, they are not wrong in their assumption that high economic participation and the presence of women in technical and professional fields in the civilian market will “spill over” into the military labour market. Last, by briefly tracing the process of women’s military participation in individual States, it will demonstrate that such “spill-over” is facilitated by the Communist glorification of women as workers that challenged Confucian gender inequality and female participants’ long and rich history in the armed forces of China and North Korea. More specifically, it will argue that in those two non-democratic States, where the “party controls the gun”, where women are more economically active, and are recognized – at least officially – by the military and political leadership as equal defenders of the socialist cause both in politics and economic life, women’s military participation will be higher. On the other hand, in South Korea and Japan, low levels of female economic activity and often-strained civil- military relations due to collective historical experience of victimization and commodification of women’s bodies – in South Korea by colonial and neo-colonial powers, in Japan also by their own military – have led to lower levels of women’s military participation. They have also produced apathy with regard to gender integration policies on the part of women’s movements as well as of these democratic societies at large. Proposed Models and East Asian Context The early Western theoretical models identified three categories of variables broadly titled “military, social structure, and culture” and argue that women are more likely to be integrated and enjoy a higher degree of participation in States experiencing manpower shortages due to demographic and economic factors, and where egalitarian societal and cultural values support such policies. Moreover, women are more likely to be participating in modern all-volunteer forces that are primarily defensive in nature, during times of either high or low threats to national security, and serving mostly in administrative and logistical roles (Segal, 1995). The first attempt to expand the model by adding domestic political actors and institutions as possible factors, proposed that States with legitimate civilian-led governments, liberal political leadership, egalitarian public policy initiatives, and non-violent sources of political change will have greater participation of women in the military (Iskra et al., 2002). Others suggested that we need to add a fifth set of variables that look at the international security circumstances, the way threats change over time and national perceptions of those threats (Kümmel, 2002). While these ground-breaking studies ought to be lauded for their Res Militaris, ERGOMAS issue n°1, Women in the Military, Part One, September 2015 3 remarkable work on theoretical systemization, conceptualization and measurement, notably of their cultural variables, they have remained largely underdeveloped. Lastly, the most recent and more empirically rigorous works on women’s military participation in NATO States contend that besides conscription ratios and threat levels, levels of women’s labour force participation (Carreiras, 2006), particularly in the professional and technical fields, as well as the presence of strong autonomous domestic women’s movements demanding change are strong predictors of gender integration in the military (Obradovic, 2014). Culture, Ideology and Economic Participation Taking into account East Asian Confucian cultural values, including strict social and gender hierarchy, respect for authority, and repression of personal for the sake of societal needs, offers an opportunity to explore those original theoretical propositions. In fact, much of the literature that examines determinants of women’s current socio-economic status in East Asia and the process of economic modernization and industrialization, argues that export- oriented economic development in Confucian patriarchal States, particularly in democratic Japan and South Korea, has not necessarily produced a considerable growth of economic opportunities for women in the public sphere and that culture has been an obstacle. Instead of progress, it led to hegemonic masculinity in the workplace by creating a complex system of hierarchy similar to the traditional military structure, where subordination and sexualization of women are a norm, and the high-ranking and highly-paid jobs are reserved for men.2 While it is often very difficult to assess and measure impact of cultural factors on national policies, these works successfully demonstrate that in Japan and South Korea, regardless of the rights bestowed upon women by these democratic governments, economic and political institutions are still considered male preserves. On the other hand, Communist emancipation of women and eradication of Confucianism in the public sphere in China to ensure the full participation of all citizens in economic sectors, particularly during the Cultural Revolution, has redefined and reconstructed sexual roles and over time led to greater equality and higher female participation in the labour force (Hong, 1997). This argument echoes some of those most recent Western theoretical works on the relationship between women’s economic and military participation. Further, Xiolin Li (1993) offers additional support by arguing that, combined with a long history of women in warfare, the Communist Party’s promotion of gender equality has in fact greatly contributed to women’s participation in the modern Chinese military. Women and Militarism in East Asia A handful of works on women’s military participation in individual East Asian countries provide an incredible amount of insight, even though none empirically tested all Western theoretical propositions, or attempted a larger comparative analysis. In South Korea, 2 Cf. Greenhalgh, 1985 ; Roberts,